How Candidates Are Exploiting Energy Independence in the US Presidential Race

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated at a recent election rally that the United States was energy independent three years ago during his administration.

In his first major speech as Trump’s vice president in the US presidential election, JD Vance called for America to achieve energy independence by increasing domestic energy production such as oil and gas within the country using American workers.

On the other hand, US President Joe Biden has used the term ‘Energy Independence’ on more than one occasion. His election campaign has announced that the United States is closer to energy independence under Biden than it has been in decades.

In the context of achieving energy independence, the Biden administration has worked over the past few years to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and move towards renewable energy production.

The Biden Climate Act of 2022 – known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – allocated a record $369 billion to expand renewable energy infrastructure in America, including huge investments in solar and wind energy projects.

However, these American ambitions face a set of challenges that make achieving large-scale production of renewable energy in America a distant possibility at the present time.

Renewable energy still requires huge investments and the development of manufacturing technologies, and there are obstacles that this industry may face if Trump wins the upcoming US elections.

Energy Independence

At the beginning of the second millennium, American politicians used the term ‘Energy Independence’ extensively after America was able to develop new technologies for extracting oil and gas, which caused a huge boom in the production of fossil fuels, known as the shale oil revolution.

Energy independence means that the country can rely only on locally produced energy. The goal of achieving energy independence has remained one of the main goals of various US administrations since the Arab oil embargo in 1973.

Various US administrations have continued their efforts to achieve energy independence. During the era of former US President George W. Bush, he signed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which laid out a plan to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Also, during the era of former US President Barack Obama, the ban on oil exports was lifted, which contributed to encouraging American companies to develop the oil industry in the country.

Former US President Donald Trump also made it a priority to increase domestic energy production and facilitated the process of leasing land to oil and gas companies.

Under Trump, the United States imported an average of 9.3 million barrels per day of crude oil and finished products.

All these factors contributed to a remarkable shift in oil and gas production in the United States. 

In 2019, for the first time in 6 decades, America was able to achieve an oil surplus, as its production exceeded what it consumed on an annual basis.

America also ranked first among oil-producing countries, with oil production in the country reaching about 19.3 million barrels per day in 2023, representing a fifth of global production, thus turning America into a major oil exporter.

Meanwhile, the United States has become the world’s largest producer of natural gas, with production reaching more than one trillion cubic meters in 2023, and has surpassed both Qatar and Australia to become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Despite this huge American oil production, which can contribute significantly to meeting the needs of the domestic market, the United States still imports large quantities of foreign oil.

This is because most American refineries are designed to handle lower-quality types of crude oil, specifically these refineries process heavy crude oil usually found in Russia and the Middle East, and cannot process high-quality light American oil.

The large size of the United States also plays a role in this context, as refineries located on the American West Coast rely heavily on oil imports from abroad, because the costs of transporting oil from American producers in the center of the country are high, making the purchase of foreign oil cheaper than domestic oil.

In 2023, the United States imported about 8.5 million barrels of oil per day, while US consumption in the same year reached 19 million barrels per day.

Despite America's excessive dependence on foreign oil, Washington has sought in the last two decades to diversify oil sources and reduce dependence on Gulf oil.

20% of US oil imports came from the Gulf states in 2007, while this percentage decreased to 10% in 2023.

In contrast, America increased its oil imports from Canada and Mexico, as the percentage of oil imports from the two countries to total US imports reached about 63% in 2023 after it was 30% in 2007.

These figures confirm that America is still largely dependent on foreign oil, and Washington has not achieved energy independence in previous years, according to the claims of Democrats and Republicans.

Overall, the scenario in which the United States depends solely on the oil it produces is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Political Slogan

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is likely to continue President Joe Biden’s economic policies, focusing on investing in clean energy as part of a larger strategy to build a sustainable economy, Democrats say.

As a senator from California, Harris was a leading advocate of the Green New Deal, which seeks to transition the United States entirely to clean energy.

Despite backing away from some of her hardline positions on offshore drilling and fracking, Harris has been dedicated to implementing climate provisions in the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The act includes significant investment in electric vehicles and clean energy, and the creation of a climate strategy to promote environmental sustainability.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, oil production surged despite promises to transition to renewable energy and pursue decarbonization.

Both Harris and Biden ran on promises to reduce drilling and, in turn, climate-warming gas emissions.

But oil companies are reporting high profits during their administration, higher than when Trump was in office.

The administration also approved the $7 billion Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, which runs counter to efforts to transition to renewable energy.

The decades-long project will harvest oil from the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope and could produce about 600 million barrels of oil.

While elected officials and oil companies hailed the decision, environmentalists argued that the move was hypocritical as the administration boasts of its efforts to transition America to cleaner energy sources.

On the other hand, Donald Trump's energy policies have focused on increasing oil, gas, and fossil fuel production, and providing tax breaks to conventional energy producers, promoting the slogan ‘drill, baby drill.’

Trump believes increasing domestic drilling will decrease the cost of oil, as Americans worry about inflation and energy costs. 

His economic policies are also expected to prioritize reducing spending on clean energy, which could have far-reaching economic consequences for the renewable energy sector and environmental sustainability.

Trump aims to make energy in the United States the cheapest in the world, and plans to accelerate approvals for natural gas pipelines and cancel the Biden administration's environmental initiatives, including re-withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and eliminating subsidies for wind energy.

The former US president also warned that a Harris victory would mean that energy costs would triple or quadruple and that the United States would not produce a drop of oil.

Indeed, Republicans have repeatedly criticized Biden's climate policies and blamed him for undermining the United States' energy independence by limiting oil and gas production and raising fuel prices.